A Forum for Orthodox Jewish thought on Halacha, Hashkafa, and the social issues of our time.

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

An Event Worth Celebrating

Tonight is the “Big One”! There will be a record number of
attendees at the Agudah sponsored Daf Yomi Siyum at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.

Daf Yomi is the program started by a Rav Meir Shapiro at a 1923 Agudah assembly in Poland. It entails studying one 2 sided page of Talmud per day. Completing the Talmud this way takes 7 and ½ years. We are once again at that point. For the 12th time.

The 90,000
seats at MetLife have been sold out for some time. There are people are still scrambling
to find tickets somewhere. I heard that there are people actually scalping
tickets! Rumor also has it that over 1000 people from Chicago will be at
MetLife tonight.

New Jersey is not the
only place that will be celebrating the completion of Shas. There will be simultaneous celebrations across the globe
including one here in Chicago. I will be attending that one tonight. Just as I
did last time 7 and ½ years ago. (I also
attended the 10th Siyum at Madison Square Garden 15 years ago).

The MetLife program
will be broadcast live in part to over 80 cities and 14 countries. Add to that several private Siyumim by
various factions of Orthodoxy and this could
be the largest single “moment” of Achdus of the both the 20th and 21st
century.

I have been critical of Agudah’s refusal to include Roshei
Yeshiva from Yeshivas Rabbenu Yitzchak Elchanan (YU). I firmly believe that it strongly
detracts from the Achdus they will no doubt claim. But this post is not about
that. It is about the Daf Yomi phenomenon itself. The celebration of its completion
is a very worthy event. Worthy of the very large attendance it will surely
have. To the best of my knowledge - more Baalei Batim are learning more Torah than
at any time in history.

And they come in all “shapes and sizes”. There are Shiurim geared
to Chasidim, to the Yeshivishe crowd, to the university educated, and to novices
with no background at all. The Maggidei Shiur (teachers of these Shiurim) range
from the extreme right to the extreme left. There are even Daf Yomi Shiurim for
women – by women.

I think the goal of Achdus sought by Rav Shapiro in establishing
Daf Yomi has been more than met in at least one area – that of learning Torah. 2
Jews who are away from home and never met – now meeting for the first time can bond in discussion
of Torah. All Jews who learn Daf Yomi are now connected.

The credit for this explosion in Torah learning is due to 3
factors in my view: The advent of Community Kollel; the publication of the
ArtScroll Shas; and a thirst for Torah knowledge by people with little time and
in some cases the inability to pursue it on their own. The idea of learning all
of Shas one page at a time for about an hour a day is a very appealing concept
for people like this. Community Kollelim were more than happy to accommodate them
by setting up Shiurim. Inspired by these Kollel Shiurim other Daf Yomi Shiurim have mushroomed all over the world.

There has been much written about the value of this kind of Torah learning. For example in a Hakirah article there is a lengthy and well sourced treatment of the subject. The author, Heshey Zelcar suggests that in most cases Daf Yomi Torah learning is so
superficial that it is barely worth the effort. Here are excerpts from his
conclusion:

(T)he current method of
Daf Yomi, as practiced by many, of covering an entire daf in a single hour and then not reviewing
that daf until the next cycle, seven and a half years later, is clearly not the
ideal type of Talmud Torah. It is impossible for most people to properly
analyze and understand two sides of Gemara in a single hour. It is even less
likely that the concepts contained in the daf will sink into one’s mind… Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day should
investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy and which do fulfill
the requirements for the ultimate form of
Talmud Torah.

How sad it is to tell the vast majority of people who have
spent the last 7 and ½ years that they could have spent their time better doing
something else. It isn’t that I don’t agree about the greater value of a more
in-depth type of study. I do in fact
agree that studying and knowing any subject well requires a great deal of effort.
It requires diligence and review. Which involves a lot of time. Much more than the typical hour spent per day
on Daf Yomi.

But the impression one gets from the author is that it is
almost a waste of time to learn Daf Yomi if one just goes to a Shiur. That is
the furthest thing from the truth. Some
of it is retained even if it isn’t reviewed.

If one has a Yeshiva background - it helps maintains the level of learning you achieved there as you now swim the sea of Talmud daily. You are constantly reviewing the principles of Torah study as well as those
Sugyos you studied as a Yeshiva student. Not to mention new concepts you tend
to pick up in Mesehctos that Yeshivos don’t learn. Is there no value to any of that?

A great example of at least one person who benefited from learning Daf Yomi can be found in a blog called Havolim. I
know the blog owner and will only say that he is a brilliant Talmid Chacham
with a connection to one of the biggest Gedolei HaDor of the last century. The
post describes one individual who was inspired to begin learning Daf Yomi
after attending the Daf Yomi Siyum in Chicago 7 and ½ years ago. It is a most unusual
story involving an incident with a female Daf Yomi Magid Shiur.

As Rav Ahron Soloveichik put it - there are 2 ways to study
the Talmud. One is like the scientist who studies the intricacies of the atomic
structure of a tree. The other is like a poet who looks at the entire forest
and sees its beauty – something the scientist may never notice. The Yeshiva or Kollel student is like the scientist.
The Daf Yomi student is like the poet. How dare Mr. Zelcar disparage the poet
and see only the scientist?

With the completion of this cycle I will have gone through
Shas 3 times. I will begin my 4th cycle right along with the rest of
the world this Friday. No doubt there will be new people all over the world joining the
club. I have benefited greatly from learning Daf Yomi and I hope to be doing
it for a long time to come.

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About Me

My outlook on Judaism is based mostly on the teachings of my primary Rebbe, Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik from whom I received my rabbinic ordination. It is also based on a search for spiritual truth. Among the various sources that put me on the right path, two great philosophic works stand out: “Halakhic Man” and “Lonely Man of Faith” authored by the pre-eminent Jewish philosopher and theologian, Rabbi, Dr. Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Of great significance is Rabbi, Dr. Norman Lamm's conceptualization and models of Torah U’Mada and Dr. Eliezer Berkovits who introduced me to the world of philosophic thought. Among my early influences were two pioneers of American Elementary Torah Chinuch, Rabbis Shmuel Kaufman and Yaakov Levi. The Yeshivos I attended were Yeshivas Telshe for early high school and more significantly, the Hebrew Theological College where for a period of ten years, my Rebbeim included such great Rabbinic figures as Rabbis Mordechai Rogov, Shmaryahu Meltzer, Yaakov Perlow, Herzl Kaplan, and Selig Starr. I also attended Roosevelt University where I received my Bachelor's Degree - majoring in Psychology.